Demon Swordsman Crona
by perfect-dissonance
Summary: Many years after the incidents of Soul Eater, Crona has decided to face the demons of his life by writing a memoir. Perhaps this is cliched, but I thought it would be good to have the story told from Crona's perspective. Crona is MALE in this story, and I do not own Crona or any of the Soul Eater characters.
1. Preface

_Preface_

It is quite impossible to precisely pinpoint where my story began. Truthfully, I am uncertain myself if my story (if my life should be referred to as such) even necessarily _has_ a beginning. Perhaps you, Reader, depending upon the disposition and constitution of your very mind, are baffled by my statement. You are most likely inquiring, "No beginning? Is such a thing even conceivable?" Indeed, in many a _sound_ mind every tale has its own commencing point, that crucial place of exposition, a foundation for very mountains of words to be built upon….

However, if you are in fact one of those with a sound mind, I advise you avert your eyes to another writing; for this work (if my scrawl is even worthy of being called so) is _not_ for those sound in their mind. Oh no, it is quite the opposite; specifically, I am communicating to the outliers of this world who share an adjoining dissonance in the thoughts' tone; this writing, my friends, is for those who have experienced the marring, brutal blows of a beast within, a beast both mentally and physically unhinging. This is why, dear Reader, if you have not been clasped by the murderous palm of insanity, I advise you look away now; for, once the forceful tides of the arid sea of mental instability pull you asunder… there is no escape from the black blooded terror that awaits.


	2. Chapter 1: My Name is Crona

_1_

_My Name is Crona_

Because this is, in a sense, a memoir of my life, perhaps it is appropriate to begin with my childhood. I don't necessarily have many recollections of my youth; in all sense of truth, what I reflect from that time so long ago is mostly a black void. Much of the knowledge I hold of my child-self can be compared to a blank chalk slate like those that can be found in old school houses; a grayish space consisting of a few faded smudges, as though something had once been written there but was now lost; all this framed in a stiffened structure which will remain forever unchanged. Though, within those murky and scattered smudges, I can conjure images, some of which even I had no idea my conscience was aware of. One of these, if I should remember correctly, was when I was about of age four.

I was sitting idly in the open salon of my exquisite childhood home, tracing the minute curves of the letters that spelled my name, "_Crona_" upon the smooth and briskly cold tile floor. I'd always thought it a bit of an unsettling and decisive name for many reasons. Though it had always passed upon my lips ringing as a bright church bell, it always reminded me of that horrid figure which Lady Medusa always made me read about in aged texts; a Greek Titan with the name _Cronus_, a wretched, power-starved immortal that was willing to sacrifice his own blood-offspring in order to maintain his good name. Though he was, in the ending of it all, overthrown by his clever son Zeus and cast into the depths of Tartarus, the mere rationalization of what he had done for his own sake shook my young soul to its very core.

I attempted to confide in Lady Medusa about the fear of my very name, and how much I had wanted it disassociated with me. Somewhere within the depths of my youthful heart I had a small hope, flickering like a dimming lamp fire, that Medusa-_sama_ would take me up in her nurturing arms and hold me to her breast to console me.

However, that flame was swiftly doused. She cast a chilling and most unnerving glare of hatred, and chastised me bitterly, saying, "You little urchin, are you stupid? Just because you have similar sounding names does not mean you are him. You will grow stronger than that fool ever was. Bah! He couldn't even defeat his own son! What use is he? Nothing! I shall never have a son so weak. Do you understand me? You will always grow stronger. You will surpass Titans, Crona. You will become a Kishin!"

I merely stared at her tall figure with large and perplexed eyes. I could hardly comprehend the things she was speaking of. Were her words for me? I didn't suppose so, for she had been facing outward from me to the storming world beyond the foggy little window of the room. Her voice struck me with poisoning words at the turn of her head. "I asked you a question. Do you understand me or no, Crona?" I once again could only gaze frighteningly at her, for I knew I would be hit on my brow if I was rendered unable to answer. I opened my mouth to speak, but no formation of a response was conjured. I simply couldn't understand her talk of strengthening me. For what? For whom? Why for? And what was that strange thing she'd always preached about? A Kishin? I knew Lady Medusa would need to hear a "yes", a sign of agreement with her, but I found it difficult. It were almost as though my lips were a now impassible gate closed off to those pitiful words clasped within my dry throat. I swallowed them down by mere force of habit, and shrunk away, awaiting that force of her palm upon my cheek, roughened with familiar blows.

But, as I tightened my lids close together when she approached, I was surprised to open them, not to a swiftly moving hand, but to a snickering smirk lying sloth-like on her face with a contradicting but fierce determination. Her golden irises strained at me with a concentration and intimidating stare, her eyes narrowing to slits, just as a snake might stare at a juicy morsel of prey; for I was her prey, I always was. "Hm, it appears you don't. Oh, well." At this point, Medusa was crouching slightly above the height of my kneeling body. She gently stroked a finger down from the corner of my brow to my trembling jaw, a rare affectionate sign from the cruel hand of a mother who was, ironically, typically emanating the opposite emotion.

"My son, though you may not understand what I say now, you shall in time know all too well what is your fate."

Again confused by her riddling and venomous speech, I asked with a pondering curiosity laced with uncertainty, "Whe-When am I going to find out….. Medusa-_sama_?"

She snickered quietly again as she rose from where she sat. "Oh, soon." And then, in a fading, final whisper directed by a far off glance, "Sooner than you could ever imagine."

And with that, she left me in the serpent-bordered salon, and as she lightly treaded away, I began tracing the tiny letters of my name once more, "_Crona_".


	3. Chapter 2: Her Snakes

_2_

_Her Snakes_

Medusa-_sama _never fed me with a great extent of exquisite meals. Although our docile home was, in my childish eyes, an elegant and grandeur place of which had far-reaching limits, the ruler of the household itself never indulged her son in the spoils of great riches. To be accurate, I frankly don't recall ever a time where Lady Medusa gave me a full experience of basic necessities. Often, she would give to me a small bowl of thin and bitter gruel, comprised of what appeared to be a combination of stale oat seedlings and stiff molasses far past due to expire. It was merely an assumption formed from the anxious glances I'd thrown to what Medusa called a scullery. The dish in which the deterring meal (if one should ever give it such a name) was served never came to be larger than the size of Medusa's hand, but in some sense of the matter, it was an uncommon blessing. The meal in itself was so repulsive to my taste that I found it a difficult struggle to not retch up what I had consumed several spoonfuls ago.

Of course, if I refused to submit to mother and cease to swallow the food, she would punish me. Not directly with physical contact perhaps, but with a burning stare so flaming it were as though embers were scorching my very pupils. She would then rise from where she sat upon the finishing of her much more appropriate dish, turn towards the door, and clasp it shut with a key. Leaving me in the dining hall without a single soul but my very own, I came to know what she had intended without her even having to communicate to me. I knew with the most scarring of dreads that she was going to leave me to suffer until I had finished.

She would return at intervals to observe my progress, though I knew she was only performing this task to act customarily. I was aware of Lady Medusa being a, well, sorceress, of some amount of power, for I had seen her, late into the night, reciting chants that were of an unknown and oddly disturbing tone. I received a constant, pressing bout of evil seething from her self; though it may have simply been a figment of my young imagination, I can remember seeing, faintly, thin crimson fumes escaping from her skin.

The evil disturbance was what alerted me to her watching, judging eye. Many a time, I would sit ill at ease within my own room, alone, to be swiftly accosted with a cold draft; oh, not just any wind emerged from a broken vent or unattended window, but a quite discomforting chill verging on a demonic nature. Medusa-_sama_ had always ensured to secure an observant watch over me with what she often referred to as her "_messengers_". Because Lady Medusa had always been so fascinated with serpents, I came to call them "_her snakes_", for they resembled a striking appearance of a horribly bruised, tube-like reptile. And, much like a true serpent, they kept fixation upon their morsel.

It was this that kept me so fearful of her.

One morning, about a year or so after her preaching to me about strengthening myself, she presented me in the hours of dawn a somewhat….. unique dish. It was an unexpected turn of the common course of events. Most usually, she would force me to rise earlier than the blazing Sun itself, and would then drag my limp and submissive body to the dining hall. It was here where the "normal" routine would commence; she would sit me high upon a rose mahogany chair, from where it seemed I could view the room's entirety just above the likewise mahogany table. I would wait for what seemed like an eternity for that stomach-flipping meal.

However, this morning was of a completely different air. Medusa-_sama_ never came to wake me in the wee hours, and when I awoke to birds chirping out my window rather than her snagging tones, I felt a swift sense of worry and fear come about me. I immediately rose from where I lay and ran to the dining hall to sit in my mahogany chair, hoping she wouldn't notice my late waking. When Lady Medusa arrived, I quickly took up the custom to bow my head before her in fright. Rather than carrying a bowl, she had in her hand a small silver tray. Oddly though…. there were no plates upon it; in fact, from where I was, I couldn't make out whether there was even any carried silverware or not.

"Good morning, Crona," she said in that sly and decisive way that she had. "I've brought to you something a bit…. different, today." A sickening smile spread across that pale and unmerciful face; I squeezed the arms of that elegant rose chair in a grueling anticipation for what was coming. Though I wasn't sure what was awaiting me on that platter, I knew it was hardly for my benefit.

"This will help you to grow stronger…." she said, now approaching; she continued whispering to herself, "stronger than Cronus… stronger than Titans…. stronger than all…." I pressed my head farther into the velvet backing in my chair, curling my bare feet up to hold them in my hands so that twisted into a protective ball…. It was to no avail.

She set the tray before me, and when I gathered the courage to raise my gaze to her I saw there on the table numerous syringes and needles and vials that were unmarked. Several of these vials empty…. some filled with a black substance that chilled me to my thin bones. There was a pile of clear flexible tubes that curled around one another again and again….. just like those speckled serpents that slithered up and around the contours of her arms.

As I stared with an intensely frozen gaze I saw her pale fingers lightly grasp a small towel that was also in front of me. From what I could perceive, it was slightly dampened….. with what, I could never and would never be sure. As Lady Medusa held the tiny wet rag in her hand, she looked upon me with cold, unfeeling eyes. A slow smile found its way across her lip. I opened my mouth to exhale a mortified scream of desperation, but so sound escaped. "Such a good boy, Crona," she whispered softly as her vector arrows snakes wrapped themselves about my arms. "Such a good boy…."

And as she pressed that cloth to my face, I could feel her snakes envelop me.


End file.
